SUPPLEMENT TO EYEWORLD | 13
1974–1980s
"Here was the adage you learn from the first day in
ophthalmolog y: If you find a foreign body in the eye,
you get it out—immediately. Now what I'm telling
you to do is put a foreign body in the eye. is was
the mentality that had to be bridged with all of these
ophthalmologists," Dr. Hoffer said, adding that this
mentality controlled everything. "You don't put a for-
eign body in the eye. I'm not going to allow you to speak
about it at our meeting. I'm not going to allow you to
write an article about it and publish it in our journal.
at was the world of 1974."
But Dr. Hoffer and others in the U.S. wanted to talk
about IOLs, research them, use them, refine them, and
improve techniques and outcomes. is desire is ulti-
mately what spurred Dr. Hoffer, only 29 years old at the
time, to create the American Intra-Ocular Implant So-
ciety (AIOIS), which would eventually be renamed the
American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery.
Jared Emery, MD, performs phaco in 1979 with an early
phaco unit. Source: Douglas Koch, MD
Dr. Ridley (le) and Stephen Obstbaum, MD (right)
Source: ASCRS
